


All Soul's Day

by DeCarabas



Series: Fugitives Together [13]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 14:09:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16834171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeCarabas/pseuds/DeCarabas
Summary: "The holiday is now known across Thedas as All Soul’s Day and spent in somber remembrance of the dead. In some northern lands, the people dress as spirits and walk the streets in parade after midnight."For the prompt: "Spirits."





	All Soul's Day

The All Soul’s Day parade winds its way through Lowtown, from the market at the base of the steps all the way down to the water. People dressed in old-fashioned clothing, faces painted greenish or veils dusted with powders to give off a faint phosphorescent glow, arms painted with bones or fake blood.

It’s bizarrely quiet for a Lowtown parade. Granted, it’s after midnight, and the procession’s led by chantry initiates raising Andraste’s flame to light the way. But it makes Hawke miss Lothering’s bonfires. And when he turns away from the procession, he catches sight of a familiar face hanging back at the mouth of the alley leading to Darktown.

The bloodstains lightly spattered across Anders’ clothes aren’t fake, Hawke’s pretty sure as he joins him, Anders greeting him with a fond smile; the marks of another night in Anders’ ongoing campaign to clear the Redwater gang off the docks and out of Darktown. 

“Hey. You’ve got some blood on your—" Hawke gestures vaguely at his own cheek, leaning back against the wall beside Anders. “You been keeping the streets safe without me?”

“I thought you’d want to spend All Soul’s Day with your family.”

He expects they’re around somewhere, watching the parade, now that the service at the chantry must be finished. And he shrugs. “We had dinner together. You should have come.” Aveline had dropped by, and they’d put out a plate for Wesley along with Bethany’s and his father’s and the grandparents he’d never met. More place settings for the dead than for the living. And Anders keeps turning down his invitations, and possibly he should take the hint in that.

And he doesn’t expect they had bonfires in the Circle, either. Or parades, probably. But this will be Anders’ first All Soul’s Day since Karl, and maybe going and getting those bloodstains is a form of remembrance or maybe it’s a form of distraction. 

But one thing he’s certain they didn’t have in the Circles was privacy. Hawke can give him that, at least. 

In the quiet, they watch the procession pass.


End file.
